Conventional positioning systems, such as Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receivers, are increasingly being integrated into battery operated user equipment (i.e., personal digital assistants and cellular telephones). The positioning systems calculate the locations of the user equipment based on signals received from the GPS satellites. The locations are used to provide applications and services for the benefit of the users. Owing to power consumption constraints in battery operated equipment, conventional positioning systems are normally only enabled on demand from the users. Hence, the applications and services can only be delivered following explicit requests from the users to establish current locations. As such, some applications and services will not function as intended where the users do not request location updates for an extended time. Therefore, a challenge in conventional implementations is to acquire the position fix as quickly as possible to minimize any delay in the response of location-based applications and services.